Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, March 21--It's not easy asking for $20 million, but Jimmy Lee had the best possible setting for his March 16 pitch, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal.
The Flooring Zone Inc. owner had a miniaturized version of his retail store as a backdrop. He had his lawyer, vice president and wife at his side, and he also had the undivided attention of a private local investment group who requested the presentation.
A 28-year veteran of the industry whose family flooring businesses goes back three generations, Lee spent just more than an hour explaining his five-year-old Brunswick, Ga.-based company's history. He explained its financial status and its regional expansion plan to the 20 men and women at the Marriott Sawgrass Resort & Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach.
As he outlined plans to open four stores in Jacksonville, six in Orlando and eight in Atlanta, the 41-year-old Lee peppered the presentation with engaging questions to his audience, whom he addressed as consumers, not just potential investors.
Lee's selling points included a more than $1 million computerized item cataloging system, a vast inventory of "self-guided stores" organized by zones named for flooring materials, the ability to offer consumers better prices based on package deals and collecting payment up front.
If his company could raise enough capital, it could expand more quickly to areas such as Tampa and Charlotte, N.C., with warehouse locations to serve the showroom stores likely in the Florida communities of Daytona Beach, Deland, Ormond Beach, Palm Coast and New Smyrna, Lee said.
Flooring Zone stores range from 6,000 to 20,000 square feet, depending on how close one is to a metropolitan area, with warehouses sized up to 200,000 square feet.
The company has four stores presently operating in Brunswick and St. Marys, Ga., and Lake City and Yulee, and a lofty goal of 1,000 stores in the future. At the session, Lee carefully detailed the Jan. 31 prospectus which offers shares of his newly registered public company for $2 each, with a maximum offering of 10 million shares.
Though Lee has not registered The Flooring Zone Inc. for public trade yet, he plans to apply for trading to the OTC Bulletin Board and NASDAQ SmallCap Market and has selected the stock symbol "TFZI."
In addition to displaying the quality of his wares, Lee showed the group recognition from Dun & Bradstreet as one of the country's fastest growing companies for three straight years and took time to explain the cost of hiring the necessary lawyers and accountants to take the company public.
